Advent 2024:  Candlelight

Advent Day 16, December 16, 2024

“Light your candles quietly, such candles as you possess, wherever you are.”  Father Alfred Delp

If you’ve followed my blog at all these past few years, you can’t miss the fact that I love candlelight. In fact, I deLIGHT in the light, especially in these dark winter months. This morning the fog is thick and rain drizzles against the window panes, a perfect day for a lit candle.

I wonder how many times in history candlelight has been a beacon home? Perhaps a candle in a window showed a weary soldier that someone waited, or a lit candle was a signal to a slave in flight that refuge lay ahead. Light imagery sparkles throughout the Old Testament and the New.

Candlelight can be a sign of unity, of hope, of peace, of perseverance in a dark time.  I believe that is what Alfred Delp thought when he penned the above quote while he waited in a Nazi prison during WWII before his execution as a faithful follower of the Light. And I’m convinced that Howard Thurman, American author, philosopher, theologian, Christian mystic, educator, and civil rights leader, knew about the power of light when he declared:

I will light Candles this Christmas,
Candles of joy despite all the sadness,
Candles of hope where despair keeps watch,
Candles of courage for fears ever present,
Candles of peace for tempest-tossed days,
Candles of grace to ease heavy burdens,
Candles of love to inspire all my living,
Candles that will burn all year long.

This day, I will light candles and sit in their glow. I will imagine those I’m praying for or concerned about and set them in that light. I will lift up the entire weary world to the Light in counterpoint to sadness, despair, fear, tempest-tossed days, and heavy burdens. 

Unity happens when we raise our candles together.

Blessings ~ Rosemary

A Blessing for Candles

Let our candles be blessed with special intention
with appreciation for all that they are—
slender and tall like regal queens
squat and round like serving maids
short burning votives and tea candles
long glowing pillars set in lanterns
on porches that beckon
welcome, brief sighs in the dark.

Let our candles be blessed—scented or no—
poured into tins of metal and glass jars of color
or plain molds of plastic sold at the dollar store,
set in candelabras as witnesses to marriage
as symbols of new life at births
as signs of love upon a dinner table
as companions to light the way across
the river Styx.

Let our candles be blessed, those flickers
of light that glow across window panes
on dreary winter days, whispering silence,
reminding passersby that they are not alone,
candles that blaze on birthdays and anniversaries,
harbingers of joy,
candles that we hover near during times of vigil
and moments of prayer reminding us
of holy Presence and the light Divine.

Let our candles be blessed with intention
with affirmation for the light that shines on
in the darkness, the light that comes into
this world, the light that burns
for all people.

© Rosemary McMahan